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On my last visit to my dvd. . .dealer, I picked up a movie called Cash. I’d never heard of it but it starred Sean Bean. Practically everything I know about the Napoleonic Wars (until War and Peace) I learned from the Sean Bean TV series Sharpe, in which he played a rifleman in the British army. And then he was Boromir in The Lord of the Rings, so he has my loyalty.

Yesterday while packing for my trip to England (I will be away for 16 days and I don’t like doing laundry while traveling) I needed to distract myself from the assorted tricks my cats employ to make me guilty. As they can no longer scratch up my suitcase (It’s lightweight polycarbonate), they try the big-eyed “kawawa” look (This would work better if they weren’t so healthy), roll adorably on the floor and show me their large tummies, or hide among the clothes in the suitcase. I can only take too much, so I picked up the first dvd I saw and put it on. It was Cash.

I didn’t know Chris Hemsworth was in it. (Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa)

The pre-Thor Chris and Victoria Profeta play Sam and Leslie Phelan, a young married couple struggling to make the house payments. One day a bag full of money literally lands on their car, and given their financial problems the Phelans are not inclined to find out where it came from. They do what most people would do: they pay what they owe the bank, then they buy a Range Rover, flatscreen TV and furniture. But before they can kick back and enjoy their good fortune, along comes the scary guy who owns the money. Or stole it fair and square.

That would be Sean Bean. His villain is a soft-spoken killer with great accounting skills. He wants his money back—including what the Phelans have already spent. All of it, down to the last cent. And when the tally falls short by several thousand dollars, he makes the Phelans go get it. But where can you find the money in the middle of a recession?

Stephen Milburn Anderson’s movie has an interesting premise but he doesn’t do very much with it. No matter how scary the villain gets, you don’t really get the sense that the Phelans are in danger. When the plot takes a nutty turn, it’s not nutty enough. The acting is solid—Bean can do menace in his sleep, Profeta does feisty well, and Hemsworth makes his moral weakling character an object of sympathy. Cash is diverting enough for two hours, and you really can’t complain about a movie that has many close-ups of Chris Hemsworth.

Our advice: Just watch Thor again.